1908

​1908 Haze over the Grand Canal2015 SOLD for £ 23.7M including premium

Claude Monet stays in Venice from October 1 to December 7, 1908. At first reluctant to interrupt his studies of nymphéas, he immerses himself into the atmosphere of the city.

His view of the Palazzo Contarini, sold for £ 19,7M including premium by Sotheby's on June 19, 2013, is undoubtedly one of the earliest works of this session. The old stone of the monument and the reflections in the lapping water offer a subtle symphony of colors.

Venice succeeded in seducing Monet. Before the end of the first month, he starts one of these series of paintings that are his passion and the culmination of his art, following the cathedrals of Rouen, the haystacks and, more recently, Waterloo bridge.

In his previous series, Monet interpreted the light in various times of the day. Venice is the most subtle of his themes because the artist appreciates that the city offers every day a different harmony. He executes six times in the same format the same view of the Grand Canal in the direction of Santa Maria della Salute.

The real theme of this series is the light of Venice sifted through the haze. The famous dome and an almost imperceptible gondola confirm that such an atmosphere can only occur in Venice. Monet managed the tour de force to bring a new style in the immeasurable iconography of the city of the Doges.

One of the six views, oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm, is estimated £ 20M, for sale by Sotheby's in London on February 3, lot 15.

​1908 Tirelessly painting the Nympheas​2015 SOLD for $ 34M including premium

From 1905 to 1908, Claude Monet is tirelessly working on the theme of the water lilies in his pond, yet all these artworks are different. The technique is in evolution throughout this period with a progressively thinner paint layer and longer brush strokes.

His focus within this subject is also changing. Controlling the effects of the surface of water, he can scatter the position of the leaves. The botanical accuracy of the blossoms is superseded by a touch closer to earlier impressionism. The rigor of perspective is no longer necessary: ​​the horizon is pushed out of field and from 1907 the artist positions also some paintings vertically.

He still uses the process that was so successful to him in previous decades, by installing several easels and working from canvas to canvas depending on time and weather.

The main subject of the artist is not the pool but the color. The paintings executed towards the final year of this fertile period can be seen as a culmination of his research. From that time, long before the dissolution of the shapes tested at the end of his life, Monet is already a precursor to Rothko and Richter.

​1908 Stone and Water2013 SOLD 19.7 M£ including premium

In 1908, Monet does not enjoy traveling any more. He wants to devote as much as possible to the ever changing expression of his pool at Giverny. However, a wealthy American woman who was a friend of Sargent manages to invite him to Venice.

Monet was a painter of nature and water. He must completely soak in the atmosphere of a place for performing his art. The old palaces of Venice are a symbiosis of stone and water. After a week of reluctance, the artist is finally charmed and begins to work.

On June 19in London, Sotheby's sells a view of the Palazzo Contarini. This palace is very close to the residence of his American hostess where Monet is housed at the beginning of his stay, and this oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm certainly expresses his first favorable impressions of Venice.

Monet is not a tourist. The palace is shown in front view and the horizon is reduced to almost nothing. The color shades of the old walls and of their reflections in the waters of the canal are sumptuous. The vibrant impressionist style offers a symphony of rare colors in a single density: amethyst, lilac, cobalt blue.

As Sotheby's rightly announced it, this painting demonstrates the importance of the series of views of Venice by Monet. It was sold for £ 19.7 million including premium.

I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's :

​1908 The Incomparable Light of Venice2015 SOLD for $ 23M including premium

Claude Monet had not imagined the beauty of light on the Canal Grande, particularly admirable when a strong sun is piercing a thick salt mist. Arriving in Venice in early October 1908, he was first intimidated by that new challenge before executing his personal method of observation at different times of the day.

Monet also admires the monuments but he does not feel like a tourist. His view of the Palazzo Ducale taken from north through the Canal Grande is commonplace, with its classic far row of monuments. Yet it is one of the finest achievements from his Venetian stay.

The monuments gilded by the sun are treated with an exact proportion and a great attention to detail with an impressionistic touch that hosts a great range of colors. The meeting of this palette with water brings an even greater variety in the beautiful and sweet shimmering of the reflections.

The surface of water becomes concrete, like on the lily pond but without the use of floating objects. In the distance, a single small gondola provides a contrast at a strong point of the composition.

This oil on canvas 57 x 92 cm is estimated $ 15M for sale bySotheby's in New York on May 5, lot 40.

I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's, reminding the former belonging of the painting to the Goldschmidt collection:

​1908 Impressionism on Venice​2016 SOLD for £ 11.6M including premium

From 1890, the art of Claude Monet consists of series that were later scattered. Early in this phase, with the Meules and the Cathédrales de Rouen, contrasts are high between the images taken throughout the day. In London and afterward in Venice, and of course with the water lilies, these variations become increasingly subtle.

His long stay in Venice in the fall of 1908 was a continuous working session during which the artist realized 37 oil paintings divided into several themes. Upon his return to Paris, Bernheim-Jeune acquired 28 of these pieces that remained in the artist's studio for the finishing touches.

In 1912, everything is ready. The exhibition of the views of Venice by Monet at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune enchants the most demanding visitors.

From morning to twilight, Monet had observed all the color variations introduced by the play of the sunlight through the fog. His views of the Palazzo Ducale taken from San Giorgio Maggiore are topographically correct but the details are embedded in a beautiful diffused light that encompasses the monuments and their reflections. The foreground of a pontoon is similarly stripped of details to only serve for opening the perspective.

One of these paintings is at the MET and another one at the Guggenheim Museum. Sotheby's sells on February 3 in London another example of the same theme, which is probably the closest to the original ideas of Impressionism and had been included in the exhibition of 1912. This oil on canvas 65 x 100 cm is estimated £ 12M, lot 23.

Monet is not the first artist to express the ethereal light of Venice. The contribution of his art compared to Turner's views is the fact that Monet, only interested in the atmosphere, removes any anecdotal animation. The gondola that slides in front of the Piazza serves only to underline a strong point of the composition.

​1908 The Illustrator of the US Cavalry2013 SOLD 5.6 M$ including premium

Frederic Remington was a man of the East, at a time of an intense curiosity about the Wild West. He became an artist and his works were published in magazines such as The Century Magazine, Harper's Weekly and Collier's Weekly. He was a contemporary of Theodore Roosevelt and illustrated a book by him in 1887.

He at first made ​​frequent trips to the West to soak up the atmosphere. The men of the cavalry were gallant heroes against the fierce Indians, and they were also clients who could ensure his glory.

Caught in the social life of the East, he became obese and almost impotent. He began at that point his career as a sculptor. He was the best interpreter of the riders on their fiery horses, with magnificent bronzes and also realistic figures of the gallop positions as proved to artists by Muybridge's experiments.

From 1901 his work for Collier's became steady. When Remington died in 1909, the magazine still had sixteen of his paintings ready to be published.

Painted in 1908, 'Cutting out pony herds' shows the US cavalry guiding a herd of Indian horses away from their camp. This oil on canvas 60 x 100 cm was published by Collier's in 1913. It is estimated $ 5M, for sale on July 27 inReno by The Coeur d'Alene Art Auction.

POST SALE COMMENT

This painting was sold exactly at its lower estimate, $ 5 million before fees.

​1908 Lailla from Morocco2012 SOLD 3.7 M£ including premium

Lailla is a gorgeous woman, and one of the most beautiful exotic nudes by Van Dongen.

In full front standing, she is protected by a large cloth covering the hair, the lower side of the face and half of the body. She loves life. Her eyes with heavy makeup are proud. Each finger bears a ring. The naked half body has a perfect line accented by a bright color.

This oil on canvas, 131 x 97 cm, is estimated £ 3.5 million, for sale by Sotheby'sin Londonon June 19. It has fascinated collectors once known for their demanding requirements: Polo, Vernes, Dray.

Yes, but Lailla never existed outside the imagination and talent of the artist. Its real title is La illa ella Alla, which is a traditional Moroccan song.

In 1908, Van Dongen has not yet made his journey in search of the southern women, the Andalusians, the Ouled Nails. His inspiration gets its source in the Parisian pleasures.

Especially, at age 31, the artist realizes an extraordinary synthesis of the avant-gardes, treated in the Orientalist theme. Van Dongen frequented both Fauvists and Expressionists and, among them, Pechstein who was much attracted by Oriental lifestyles.

Setting prostitutes and semi-worldly in glory is also a popular theme of the time, the theme for which the Demoiselles d'Avignon just opened a new dimension in the freedom of treatment.

1908 Nadezhda in Russian Costume2017 SOLD for £ 3.65M including premium

Nikolai Fechin is a student of Repin at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. In 1908 the departure of the master releases the creativity of the student who returns to his hometown in Kazan.

On November 28 in London, Sotheby's sells a portrait of Nadezhda Sapozhnikova painted by Nikolai in 1908, oil on canvas 142 x 90 cm, lot 39 estimated £ 1.2M. In line with Nikolai's interest in rurality, the young woman wears an ample Russian costume typical of the 1840s. A little older than Nikolai, Nadezhda is his pupil in Kazan and no doubt also an inspiration for his new style.

She is sitting and leaning in a dynamic attitude accentuated by a diagonal composition. The vigorous impasto by the knife blurs the lines. This portrait already displays the vibrant energy and psychological intensity that characterize the art of Fechin throughout his career, first in Russia and in the United States from 1923. This painting exhibited in 1910 in Pittsburgh will be able to compete with Manet and Sargent.

By its quality and its originality the art of Fechin has keen followers. Painted in the same year as Nadezhda's portrait, an ambitiously sized rural wedding scene 186 x 282 cm was sold for $ 3.3M including premium by Sotheby's on November 1, 2011. A cheerful portrait of a boy in a costume and attitude of cowboy painted in 1940, 76 x 51 cm, was sold by Macdougall's in December 2010 for £ 7M over a lower estimate of £ 500K.

The lot is being sold for the acquisition fund of the San Diego Museum of Art. The image is shared by Wikimedia.

​​<1909 Ida in the Empty Room2015 SOLD for £ 2.05M including premium

From 1899 to 1909, Vilhelm Hammershøi lives on the first floor of a building at Strandgade 30, Copenhagen. Throughout this period, this apartment was the main theme of his work.

The rooms are sparsely furnished and not decorated. The walls are white. His wife Ida is present, often from behind, always quiet and never inactive although her occupation is not often identifiable. The interior doors are opened or closed, the sun sometimes penetrates through the tall glass windows.

Vilhelm is shy and austere, and the idea of a recluse life does not disturb him. His sharp compositions inspired by the Dutch interiors of the seventeenth century oppose the trends of modern art that he yet knew. His questions about the society of his time resulted in a rejection. He is now considered as having been a precursor to Hopper.

The glossy paint has an unexpected effect. The viewer enters the Strandgade apartment as if the artwork was a mirror in a frame and the exhibition room had been cancelled.

This impression is at its best when the contrast between light and shade is important. An oil on canvas 51 x 56 cm painted late in the Strandgade period is estimated £ 700K for sale by Sotheby's in London on May 21, lot 12.

​1908 Prince Heinrich and Speed King​2017 SOLD for $ 1.87M including premium

Automotive and aeronautics are developed in parallel. Races, demonstrations and rallies are organized by wealthy sponsors and by aristocrats. Prince Heinrich, brother of the emperor of Prussia, is supporting a competition that combines tourism and competition.

The Prinz-Heinrich-Fahrt is a stage race on German roads including a few hill climbs. The competition takes place over three consecutive years, 1908 to 1910, for a total of about 6000 Km. The trophy awarded to the winner at the completion of these three events is a silver model car weighing 13.5 Kg offered by the prince.

A Benz 50 hp wins the first of these rallies in 1908. It is a very good advertising for the brand that decides to launch a model of touring car under the name Prinz-Heinrich-Wagen with a considerably increased power which allows to reach 130 km/h.

A Benz 75/105 hp Prinz-Heinrich is for sale by Bonhams on November 11 in the house sale of the Bothwell collection near Los Angeles,lot 420estimated $ 1M.

Built in 1908 or 1909, this car was exported to the US and frequently used by Barney Oldfield. A great fan of Benz vehicles, Oldfield was nicknamed the Speed ​​King after driving a Blitzen-Benz at 210 Km/h at Daytona Beach in March 1910.